The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a three-judge panel’s unanimous finding that Alabama’s congressional map was racially discriminatory, clearing the way for the state to use a configuration that gives Republicans a structural advantage in six of seven districts and that voting rights advocates say illegally dilutes Black voting power. The unsigned order from the court’s conservative majority said the lower court panel “did not heed the presumption of legislative good faith” when it concluded that the plan was invalid under the Voting Rights Act.
The ruling means Democrat Shomari Figures, who represents Alabama’s Second District, will likely lose his seat in the 2026 midterm elections. Under the reinstated map, the district flips from competitive to safely Republican. The court’s three liberal justices publicly dissented.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, said the court “debases the democratic process” and “corrodes the rule of law by rewarding Alabama’s gamesmanship and outright defiance of court orders.”
The case has a long and tangled history. It began in 2021, when Alabama implemented a new congressional map to account for population changes documented in the census. The map contained only one majority-Black district out of seven, even though the state’s population is more than one-quarter Black. Voters immediately sued, arguing the map illegally diluted minority voting strength in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution.
Lower courts agreed, ruling that Alabama must draw a map with two districts where Black voters have a realistic opportunity to elect their candidate of choice. The Supreme Court more than once ordered Alabama to draw a compliant map. The state refused and continued to litigate.
The legal landscape shifted in April, when the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority all but gutted what remains of the Voting Rights Act, ruling that states cannot purposefully draw districts that are majority-minority. Alabama then asked the high court to reinstate its original map, arguing that the April decision made it permissible to use a plan with only one majority-Black district.
In a May order, the Supreme Court effectively reversed its prior positions and allowed Alabama to use the old map for the upcoming midterm elections. By that point, absentee balloting had already begun under a court-drawn map. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey cancelled the scheduled elections and set a special primary for August for the affected congressional races.
The Supreme Court had ordered a lower court panel to continue evaluating Alabama’s map under the new legal standard. Just 15 days after the May order, that panel — composed of three Republican-appointed judges, two of them Trump appointees — concluded unanimously that even under the Supreme Court’s narrowed test, the single-majority-Black district plan was “intentionally discriminatory.”
Alabama returned to the Supreme Court a second time, arguing that the map was partisan, not racial — that the Republican-controlled legislature simply drew the lines to elect more Republicans — and that under the court’s new interpretation of the Voting Rights Act, the map should be allowed to stand. The court’s conservative majority agreed, writing that the lower court had failed to extend the presumption of legislative good faith.
Tuesday’s decision is the latest in a series of Supreme Court rulings that could reshape the 2026 midterm elections by making it substantially harder for Democrats to win competitive House seats in states where Republican-controlled legislatures have moved aggressively to redraw district lines following the April Voting Rights Act ruling.